Nicholas Bate

You Sort of Like The Author's Book...

but it's a bit messy? Why not re-mix it? 

There's reality...

and then there's memory. With Nick Hornby.

Twitter Thanks 5

Thanks-as always-to: Cultural Offering, Nelson Biagio, Tanmay Vora, Simon Geoghegan, Gaurang Desai.

42 Thoughts.

1. Kids only need four things to release their awesome potential: (1) unconditional love, (2) cardboard boxes and sticks, (3) stories read to them and (4) a chance to make home-made bread. If there were a list of 100 things they need, TV would be item 104 and descending.
2. If you haven’t listened to Mrs Robinson by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel for a while, sticking it on the turntable sometime soon will make your day better.
3. A Professional absolutely, definitely still has a pen.
4. If you are not regularly walking you are not re-vitalising your body. And if you are not re-vitalising your body you are reducing your potential. And if you are reducing your potential it is much harder to change the world for the better. So: start walking.
5. For society to work we have to be conditioned to a greater or lesser degree. And it starts young. All well and good: just take care it doesn’t stop you asking why? And why not? Yep: do pay your parking tickets; after all that’s what good citizens do. But…on education…pensions…wellness…government…and much else…become your own expert. Never, ever believe the sound-bite. You'll only get bitten.
6. Nobody needs TV any more than they need French Fries. Both are best in (an ever-reducing) moderation.
7. There is absolutely, definitely, 100%, a non-fiction book in everybody. Strategy. Tactics.
8. There are some awesome bloggers out there, every one of whom can aid and abet your thinking. Start with the class of 2009.
9. Have you ever thought about any real freedoms? Freedom from the opinions of others...even from the opinions of yourself? Colonel Walter E Krutz
 Apocalypse Now
10. Never. Ever. Ever. Deliver a coffee of sadness. Genuine picture. Genuine supplier. Genuine sadness.
11. We’re living in a world of mind-boggling complexity. Copenhagen didn’t stumble (simply) because of people but of an inability to reduce the trivial many issues to the vital few issues both in terms of people involved and issues addressed. It’s a skill for both your family and your firm. Your friends and your fitness. Your future and your fun. Complexity reduction, that is.
12. There are only two subjects you really need. That’s (1) History or what worked/didn’t work. And (2) Chemistry to best understand interactions. It’s a shame both are being rapidly diluted (‘just modern history’) and lessened (‘we need to teach blogging instead of the periodic table’).
13. Get paid because you did an astonishing job. Don't be paid to do an astonishing job. You do it because it is there.
14. There are at least 52 ways to create a breakthrough in your Life, including the stunningly simple one of turning-up on time. No excuses. Navy Seal discipline. Be there.
15. Many of our leaders talk such a huge amount of bull**it and the most incredible thing is they think we believe it.
16. Decide in 2010 to give equal attention to both your goals and the momentum behind those goals.
17. The issue is not whether there is climate change or not. Nor of who or what caused it. It’s pretty clear that anyone with decent verbal dexterity can argue the case either way. The issue is that as humans we were given a pretty nice home: why would we knowingly abuse it? Wear an extra jumper when appropriate, dispose of gum properly and walk to the corner shop. Less melodrama, more action. Easy, really.
18. Our job in this Life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we image we ought to be, but to find out who we really are and to become it. Steven Pressfield.
19. Once tough humans...are we getting really soft? Really soft! The stuff we are complaining about is increasingly ridiculous. Some things are simply out of our control. Teach your kids that Life is tough but exciting. Who’d want it easy and dull? Oh, you want it easy and exciting? Ha, ha. By definition: that combo doesn’t exist in real Life. It's the Disney combo.
20. At times it is important to be outrageous.
21. You need to listen to the Beatles enough to realise that they weren’t (just) song-writers nor even (just) philosophers but actually four young men who collectively held one of the few keys to the universe. Listen enough and that key is yours.
22. Gaining financial independence gives you apparent freedom. Understanding true wealth gives you real freedom.
23. There will always be some people who just don’t get it. Spend as little time with them as possible if they don’t want to know.
24. There is something which is bugging you. Here’s the thing; it will continue to do so until you address it. Once addressed it will diminish in stature and your final laser-like focus will demolish it.
25. Language is code. Code creates the programmes. Those programmes run your Life. If there is anything in Life you don’t like: go back to the code.  Of course your Spanish lessons are not progressing; there’s a little bit of code  hanging about deep in your brain which is saying: 'I'm no good at languages'. And that code is in the programme which dictates how effective your learning is. Become a student of language and you become a student of your personal potential.
26. Michael Wade: not so random thoughts. Print, photo-reduce. Place in wallet. Read daily.
27. Seriously. Never ever follow the 'low-price-to-get-business' strategy. 
28. Cultural Offering: really, really understand the importance of routines.
29. Do you really, really want money? Or what it can give you? And if the time and energy and sheer sweat you put into getting that money were re-directed directly to what you really, really want? 
30. Books-despite constant threats and the sheer wonderfulness of the kindle-will never disappear as they address four of the five senses. Only sex or a good curry can beat that.
31. How come somebody taking the time to connect with you can totally change your day for the better? Ours is not to reason. It’s just a human thing. The hi-touch approach will alway win over the high-tech one. Something to bear in mind as you outsource your business to a call-centre+web-site combo.
32. We all produce art. Some of us frame it, some of us read it aloud, some of us publish it. But understand this: a great presentation is an art form, a concise and caring clinical explanation to an anxious patient is a work of art. So long as we do them properly. Act as if your work were on show at a gallery.
33. Just as you can repair almost anything with a roll of duct tape, you can fix almost any relationship by talking it out.
34. Some of the greatest works in film, architecture, music,  literature and science were done by people who were not celebrated in their Life. Maybe that tells us something: chase the art not the celebrity.
35. 2010 is going to be so amazing.
36. Sure twitter does allow a chance to do social marketing etc., etc., etc., But really:  we love to talk. Thank goodness.
37. When Gene Kranz (Apollo 13) said that 'he didn't intend to lose anyone on his  mission' he was not of course at that point stating an iron-clad guarantee. But his body, voice and words were so interlocked, so congruent that the molecules  in everybody in that briefing room simply decided to work to their highest standards ever. That’s leadership. Not a  pie-chart of competencies  in the HR handbook.
38. Don't wait for your salary to double. DOUBLE your salary.
39. Musing is very, very good for one.
40. Why does the PI in the thriller still have a quiet cigarette and a coffee? It centres him. Rituals are important for us. Scatter a few throughout the day: morning pages, taking a walk, meditation, a walk, a swim, sharing news at the end of the day. Dull and routine? No: grounding and enlivening.  Best to ditch the cigarettes, though.
41. Today is a perfect day. It actually always is; we'll get it eventually.
42. So. What next, oh Running Horse, Tumbling Mind?

Always Music

and always more. Eclecticity.

Thank You

to the kind folks at Web Worker Daily for a mention.

The People Doppler Shift

We all know of the Doppler Shift from the changing sounds of sirens in big cities even though we might not have been able to truly get our head around it in school science lessons. Surprisingly perhaps, first descibed in 1842 by the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler it explains how the wave form changes with the relative positions of e.g. police car and observer. (it is not of course exclusive to sound. The study of light wave Doppler Shifts have taught us a lot about our universe...). The received sound frequency is only 'accurate' or identical at the instant the car passes us. 

The People Doppler Shift is much the same. We hear a lot about people before we meet them. A lot if not all of this information is distorted. In much of lIfe this can be self-fulfilling: we are 'told' someone is an under performer and then we act toward them as if that is true (so often done at school and college of course ...). And as the person walks away we distort the record of the conversation again, often turning it into gossip. The only way we really get to the 'true' person is to look them in the eyes and have a proper 'seek to understand' conversation. Tough? Oh, yes. Worth while? Absolutely.

Things A Little Quiet With Your Visitors?

the great Cultural Offering gets the conversation going...

Utpal

encourages us to review, ask and learn and then be excellent.

The End of An Era

Borders leaves the UK. And last day at the Oxford store: